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First published by HarperElement 2017

FIRST EDITION

© Casey Watson 2017

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Casey Watson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008127600

Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008217648

Version: 2017-08-18

Contents

To my acute disappointment, not to mention sadness, Keeley’s notes didn’t make for the best reading. There was little in them that I didn’t already know, and what little I hadn’t known only served to confirm that there had been a reason for her being parted from her siblings, in the form of a big question mark hanging over her. A question mark about her that had effectively sealed her fate. And all sparked by a disclosure from a four-year-old.

It was usual, at the point when children are removed into care following a crisis, for any who are old enough to be interviewed. In the case of the McAlister children, this duly happened, the four- and six-year-olds, Courtney and Aaron (who’d been billeted together), both having been questioned about what happened on the night when the police came.

Mike’s assumption had been right. The children had initially been fostered separately for practical reasons, there being no one available to take them all. So it was that Keeley was fostered on her own, the middle two to a temporary foster home together, and the babies – the ones with the best chance of an untroubled future – into foster care alone, with a view to being quickly adopted. All of which I already knew, of course.